Giant Compton Shifts in Hyperbolic Metamaterial

Abstract

We study the Compton scattering of light by free electrons inside a hyperbolic medium. We demonstrate that the unconventional dispersion and local density of states of the electromagnetic modes in such media can lead to a giant Compton shift and dramatic enhancement of the scattering cross section. We develop an universal approach for the study of coupled multi-photon processes in nanostructured media and derive the spectral intensity function of the scattered radiation for realistic metamaterial structures. We predict the Compton shift of the order of a few meVs for the infrared spectrum that is at least one order of magnitude larger than the Compton shift in any other system.